MSS: Nadine Day

We we talk to Nadine Day, the new president of United States Masters Swimming.
Day talks about the differences between her job as president and the duties of the executive director, her goals in her term and what she likes most about Masters swimming. She also talks about her own swimming and the incident that hampered her preparation for this spring's nationals.

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Peter Busch: This is the Morning Swim Show for Wednesday May 9th, 2012. I am your host Peter Busch. In the FINIS Monitor today, we talk to Nadine Day. She is the new President of United States Master Swimming and a heck of a Masters swimmer herself. Nadine joins us right now on the FINIS Monitor from Danville, Illinois. Hi. Nadine, welcome to the Morning Swim Show, how are you?

Nadine Day: Hi. Thank you. I am doing well, thank you.

Peter Busch: Congrats on being the new President of U.S Masters Swimming. Every new leader of any organization wants to put their own mark on it. What would you say are some of the things you want to accomplish?

Nadine Day: Right now I am just learning the ropes. This is my first six months. What I really want to do is hopefully have a clear model of what people's roles and responsibilities are. We are still transitioning. We used to be a highly volunteer organization. Now we have 10 people that work in our national office so that transition we are still in what I call the honeymoon stage where volunteers and staff are learning to work together and my work is to define those roles so there is no confusion and everybody understands their roles and responsibilities.

Peter Busch: What is something about what you know what you have done in a previous career or that you still do that has prepared you for this?

Nadine Day: I was the Vice President prior to becoming the President. I had oversight over the Coaches' Committee, Fitness Committee and Sports Medicine and Science Committee. I am a licensed physical therapist. My husband and I own our own private practice in Danville, Illinois. It is an outpatient sports medicine clinic and before that I was a clinical administrator that ran PT and orthopedics over the orthopedics doctors and staff, so I have some of that role in administrative capabilities. In addition, I have been on the board ofdirectors now for 8 years so, but I am still learning the ropes as a leader and learning to lead the board of directors and move forward with our initiatives and our strategic plan that we just wrote.

Peter Busch: So not only are you in charge of the Masters meets. If somebody gets an injury on the deck you know you are talking about rehab right then and there?

Nadine Day: No, no, no, no. We are not in charge of the Masters meets. We have wonderful meet directors and host across the nation. Each state, which we call local master swim committees, has events and they host the events. They are responsible to sanction the events and the local meet host runs the event. What we do is we provide any marketing material or any instruction or advice if they need it, but other than that they are the ones the running the events. They do a great job. We just had our nationals in Greensboro, North Carolina and that was such a wonderful facility. It was amazing, we had 1800 swimmers there from 18-years-old to 95-years-old competing. It was great.

Peter Busch: Tell us maybe last three years -- we talked to Rob a lot when he was in charge. You know the growth that Masters swimming has seen in the past few years.

Nadine Day: Well Rob Butcher is still our Executive Director. He is in charge of the operation side. I"m the president of the USMS and I work with the board of directors and the volunteer sites so Rob is still involved, but the changes in the last 3 years like I said, our staff is growing. We are more professional and business oriented a little bit. We are partnering with other national organizations to promote swimming as adult through fitness and being healthy and swimming through your lifetime. So that is one of the initiatives that we are looking at achieving. Our membership grows every year, we are on average 4% to 6%. We are hoping this year will be probably around 8% with the Olympics. We tend to go a lot more members during the Olympic year and the following year after that.

Peter Busch: Nadine we previously mentioned that you are a swimmer yourself but you had a kind of a bizarre injury that has hampered your training lately.

Nadine Day: Yes, way, way back from convention I experienced an episode of vertigo and found out that my vestibular cochlear nerve was damaged, so I lost my hearing on my left side, so now I have an implant. I have an hearing implant and I have episodes of vertigo when I get tired and when I change positions and things like that such as starting and turning so it makes swimming a little difficult, but I was able to participate in nationals so I was very pleased with that.

Peter Busch: Without any issues were you able to compete?

Nadine Day: I have issues, but I mean I am comfortable in the water enough that I am safe. If I wasn't safe to be in the water I wouldn't swim in competition, but fitness is something. Swimming is something that I enjoy and being healthy so I will continue to swim.

Peter Busch: Yeah so with that pain you know, you don't have to focus on the pain that the rest of your body is feeling during a race, right?

Nadine Day: Yes, I just have to focus on following that black line because, and plus you need to look at the black line to swim straight in the lane.

Peter Busch: Well Nadine we hope that you continue to swim and break records and do well with United States Master swimming and really happy we are able to get you on. Thanks a lot for joining us.

Nadine Day: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Peter Busch: All right that is Nadine Day joining us in the FINIS Monitor today and that is it for today's show. I am Peter Busch reminding you to keep your head down at the finish.